Nixon, Haldeman & Ehrlichman on Second-term reorganization and Henry Kissinger

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They're never going to take a 58 year old man, are they?

No.

Or will they?

No.

Especially not a 58 year old man who slept over from an outgoing administration.

Yeah, and I pushed that hard.

We don't have any money.

This is the time to make it.

And it's their only chance to make it.

It's Klein's only chance.

Well, so he is.

He just does stay on, and he later, so nothing is going to be sitting on him for a little while.

Yeah, but I'm going to have to keep the pressure on him because he's not going to.

He's not in.

Why?

Why just bring him in and sit him down?

Oh, absolutely.

You're going to have to keep the pressure on him because he can feel it.

You don't want to keep the office in a circle of people out and shifting things around.

That's the thing.

I'd rather everyone say, fine, I'm going and I've got a good job and I'll make it on Monday.

But then, like, we all got to help each other get the job or something, right?

Herb is a, Herb is a, if nothing more, he's a procrastinator.

And, you know, just, I don't know.

Well, we're over to Herb.

It's clear to him that he's got to go.

He's got to go in the short term.

And he argued, you know, that all the help he could be on the inaugural.

I said, let's not argue.

It's one reason, operationally, why you need to stay.

The only reason you need to stay is for the proper cover for you, which we are very equally anxious with you to have done right.

Proper cover for you on your departure.

Now, given that, don't worry about any internal operations.

Don't worry about running the office.

Don't worry about the constructive things that need to be done.

Just worry about getting yourself positioned right outside and get out.

The rest of it is just a plus.

It doesn't matter.

So, he said, yeah.

He tries to rationalize it by saying, well, it would be helpful if I stayed on in the inauguration and we edit or something.

He could help sell the Vietnam Center.

Sell the Vietnam Center.

The Vietnam settlement has got to be sold at the top at the very highest level once and patting around talking to the editor-in-chief of Peoria is not going to make any difference.

You see, there's one place for peace.

Now, how do you handle this in terms of what Colson is going to do with Peterson, that jealous of Klein?

I don't know.

Colson's going to be announced.

He's leaving.

He wants to be announced.

That was different for him because he wants to, he has to be announced to be out in order to line up his clients.

Client has to appear to be in in order to line up a job.

And he's right.

His market value does go down if we announce he's leaving.

Is that right?

Sure.

Well, this idea of offering him USIA is because that increases his market value.

He's got to change to do that.

He would be wrong to take it unless he just wants to retire as a government actor.

That's right.

It's a shitty thing.

And also, we could get a much better man for that job, too.

Yes.

Thanks.

The Leon Parma thing is an excellent idea.

I think it is.

Well, I'm just the kind of a guy, and I'm going to...

I've been doing a little thought thinking, too.

We don't know if Parma has anything as far as the payoff.

I'm not concerned about the payoff.

But the point is, it's a guy with a Mexican name, and so forth, and so on.

Let's face it, we do need a good ambassador in Mexico.

I think it's a lot too important for that.

You know what I mean?

You've got more people who speak Spanish than most every night.

Jim Reynolds, for instance.

If he wants to go, he wants to go to that place.

You better turn Herb off before he calls you.

Check it out.

I'm asking if he's being considered.

Yeah.

I've tried problems.

I've tried to go down the line and decide whether we want him or send him someplace else.

You know, we don't know.

We don't know anything.

That's right.

Good.

But if you want to rent him, he'd be fine down there.

I think he does.

His father has a place down there.

He goes down.

He's a pretty strong runner in the position of a runner.

I think I've gotten the heart of the problem.

I say, Mr. Rogers, you're both playing exactly the same game.

Each wants to force the other to leave before he does, because he wants you to win.

And that is the right way for you to want to look at it.

I think Henry has to leave.

I think that, frankly, I don't think this administration can really... can really...

Unless they really unlikely happens and he settles kind of back into the groove.

He never will.

He's got the taste of lead.

But he's also, you know, this business of, you know, rushing up to football games, theaters, and wanting to go over and sign autographs at events, and then waving to the crowds, and when he gets off the airplanes and all the rest.

He is now the figure, he's a hell of a public figure, you know, and a celebrity, and he's frankly beating on his own goddamn ego.

And I really think that, I just think the talk with him has to be pretty good.

Like his pitching about Rodgers, I would hit him right in the balls on that.

Or Richardson, he's the tough Richardson of the rock and ball.

There isn't anybody else that knows him.

I haven't told one goddamn soul.

That's the way Henry works.

And the thing is that he's, for example, when he gets, when we get back, you know, we have been, we have gone too far, much too far gone.

And it's my fault because I haven't had the time.

You've got to get into this further.

Henry has had virtually a veto on

ambassadors and the rest.

And he's made some very bad calls.

You know that?

Bad calls.

On his own staff, he's made bad calls.

He's got the worst staff in terms of leaks or anybody else.

That has got to be, I don't know whether you have to rub that into him or not.

But I think we've got to say now, let's just take a look at this.

As everywhere else, we've got to tighten up in your place.

We don't have a holy franchise here.

On the other hand, what I meant is that when it comes to ambassadors and these other things, I am going to take a very different role.

I'm going to really take a hard look at his stuff.

I'm going to take a goddamn hard look at it before, you know, he rumbles in on things and he's playing more deep his games.

That was the case as of two years ago.

Not as much.

I think now he's really grabbing more and more all the time.

and trying to assume that he can do this or that or the other thing.

And he's got to be reined in, and reined in very hard.

I would not be concerned with the fact that he's in the midst of negotiations and all that other things.

When he gets back, okay, when he gets back, I feel that you've got to sit down.

I would start right off, I don't know, I would start right off with it.

But I would say that it was a disastrous argument, Tom, that we've got to,

calls from top people all over the country, not about the, you know, the thing he would worry about, but the substance of what he said about the mass grave.

Don't let it get away with it.

And then say that mainly that people said this raises a grave question about your relationship with the president, that that's what people are raising.

It's very clear that you were talking about

confidence to such a person and talking that way, you were talking differently than you talked publicly.

And that makes it even worse.

That makes it worse.

And it appears by that.

Yes, that's the way it appears.

It appears, therefore, that this is what you really believe.

And under the circumstances, Henry, this cannot be.

Even if it were true, it cannot be.

And I think you ought to handle that.

I'm greatly concerned about

any of his recommendations on who the hell should do the mixture on the salt.

I don't know what kind of a son of a bitch he'll find.

I mean, I've got a heavy hate.

How does hate get out?

I don't know.

Because I don't know what necessarily are these relevant.

One way you want it there is simply through these negotiations.

Because as soon as possible you want hate out, then I can have a direct relationship with hate.

And we can checkmate him on some of these things.

But my own feeling now is that with recognition, quite a lot of touch now, is with regard to Rush, I don't know quite what we're going to offer him.

I think we're going to say come over as Undersecretary of State.

I don't know what's going to happen at the end of that period.

Is that what we say?

But I'm going to put Casey as Secretary of State for Administration.

The economic man, what am I going to say about that?

You call Rogers on that.

Just say that at his age, having had a heart attack, I think this should be fine.

But he ought to do it himself.

But I just don't want to move Ingersoll out of Japan after he's there to make another change.

And that Rogers is to deal with this.

Let's test Rogers right away on this reorganization.

I think we should do that.

Throw all the contracts to him.

Now that you've already told Rogers that we have in mind, put him in as Undersecretary.

Roger.

He's still been told that?

Yeah.

He's told about Casey.

Now he's got to get out of that place.

So we'll just tell Rush that Casey needs to go in for the purpose of administration, and I want to carry it out.

Do you want Rush to back in the front?

What I think we ought to do, if he can do it, would be have Carlucci, Casey's definitely, that would be one hell of a signal.

I'm telling Carlucci now, there'll be a change later.

That's what I'm saying.

Right.

All right.

Nixon, Haldeman & Ehrlichman on Second-term reorganization and Henry Kissinger

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 21, 1972

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